The Last Time

Growing up, one of my favorite movies (if not THE favorite) was "The Chipmunk Adventure" starring Alvin and the Chipmunks. Hey, no judgement on the taste of a young toddler. We all had our moments of regret (hello, 90s fashion).

Anyway, for Emerson's birthday a few years ago I bought her a copy of this movie on the off chance she might like it too. She watched it once or twice, then got bored of it very quickly.

Fast forward 18 months, and my growing, vocabulary-expanding-by-the-day sweet princess Anna finds The Chipmunk Adventure and loses her mind. This girl loves the Chipmunks, and this discerning mama (who at this point cannot stand their terrible high-pitched voices) loves that she loves it. I love the innocence of my girls. They laugh and laugh at jokes that aren't funny, they love bubbles like I love coffee, and they're just so happy all the time.

Anyway, there's one song in particular in the Chipmunk Adventure called "My Mother." It's about needing your mother (you see, they sing it to a baby penguin who's been stolen from his family and shipped off to Egypt. Very upsetting). Anyway, my Anna-boo cannot get enough of this song. She makes me rewind it again and again and again.... and again.

And almost every night, she makes me sing "Da Mudder" song (as she calls it) to her before she goes to sleep. And not just one line, but the whole thing. While I sing it to her, she plays with my hair or my face, smiles, giggles, sings along with me, or all of the above.

There are some nights when I think "This song AGAIN?? Do you really want Mommy to sing that whole song AGAIN??"

But then I remember that this time could very well be the last time.

You see, I know there will come a day, probably not so far in the future, when Anna won't want me to sing to her at night. She won't want me to tuck her in. She won't want to play with my hair and face, and in fact probably won't even make eye contact with me, unless it's rolling her eyes at something I said.


So every night, you bet your bottom dollar I am going to sing that damn song.

Because I will never know what the "last time" for this special moment between me and my youngest daughter will be, and these are moments which I treasure more than anything in the world, I would rather spend 2.5 extra minutes a day singing a song that I'm sick of, hoping that some day Anna will remember this and will share these moments with her family too.

Moving On

It's so weird logging into Blogger - I almost forget how to actually blog these days. But I thought it was time to dust off this old blog and provide some life updates. I want to keep this blog as a diary for my family, but when you're so busy with your family, it's sometimes to to sit down and reflect isn't it? But I am making an effort today! I actually have a few posts up my sleeve... here's hoping I find the time and energy to give this blogging thing a chance again.

Now where were we.. oh yes, Moving On.

As you might have seen if you follow me on Instagram, we sold our house! And we're moving in 7 days. Say whhhhhat?!?! Let's back up a bit.

A few months ago, Jon and I were up drinking a bottle of wine (as most of our brilliant conversations involve a bottle of wine, obviously) and we tossed out the idea "Hey, what if we sold our house?" Random, right? We LOVE our current house. We love the neighborhood, the location, and we love all the updates we've done to make the house more modern. But after renovating every single room in the house, we were left kind of twiddling our thumbs... no more projects? What to do? Take on new hobbies? Bahaha.

We had it in the back of our minds that this house was not going to be our "Forever" house, and we knew we'd want to move before Emerson started Kindergarten. So, it was either move this summer or next summer. Meanwhile, we were watching the real estate market in our area and noticed that houses were flying off the market, usually within a day. So we decided, heck, let's give it a try. With these exceptions: we'd only move if we could find a house that was an upgrade from where we were now (because like I said, we LOVE our house), and if the house was in a great school district and zone and if it was a house that needed work. After all, neither of us are very good at thumb twiddling. We wanted to get our hands dirty and put our stamp on a new home in a big way.

Well, as luck would have it, about a month ago, we got the sign we needed that this was the right time. I had been looking daily (sometimes hourly) at new listings that would pop up on the market, but nothing felt like *our* house. But then I randomly stumbled upon a 'For Sale by Owner' listing, and I recognized it immediately. I had seen the house on Realtor.com back in the fall, and I had actually made Jon drive past it with me. I've never done anything like that before, but I was so intrigued by the house because it was in a beautiful neighborhood and was WAY undervalued. It was obvious that the house needed work from both the inside and outside, but I saw so much potential in it that something compelled me to drive past it.

Anyway, while browsing Zillow that night, I saw that the FSBO house was actually the same house I drove past last fall. I just assumed it sold and that's why it wasn't on the market, but it hadn't. I reached out to our neighbors, who are realtors, to ask if they could set up a showing for us. This was on a Tuesday. We went to see it on Thursday. We both walked in and knew it was the one for us. We listed our house the next day, and received a full price offer half a day later. Such a whirlwind, but just like with love, when you know, you KNOW. And though we have a TON of work ahead of us, we are giddy with excitement at the potential of this new house. I could see this being our "Forever" home, and I can't wait to get the keys and get started on it.

So there we have it. The story of how a bottle of wine turned into two very large transactions and a ton of boxes. And my first blog post in months. Phew. That wasn't so bad.... maybe I should try this more often???

And also, here's a sneak peek of our new digs (landscaping happens on day 1):